to do with the damp. In March, she had been hurled out from the world by a single phone call and she wasn’t down yet. Even on the flight east, after she had said goodbye to Dan, taken her seat, closed her eyes during takeoff. The plane didn’t need to climb, she was already up there, and the entire flight had seemed a gradual downward slant, and yet never did she land. Even landing it didn’t land. Even in Boston she wasn’t down. And now here she was, climbing porches in the moonlight, on the way up again, her landing further off than ever.
She had spent the flight staring out the window, though her neighbors, absorbed in the movie, glanced sideways at her and frowned. It was an exceptionally clear day, the view should have been wonderful, and yet it was marred by something it took her most of the flight to understand. The land below looked tired and old—there was a graying agent in the air creating the effect of an exhausted giant sleeping with its mouth open; the lakes, its eyes, rheumy and clouded; the highway, its lips, crusted over with spittle; its hands, the valleys, listless and pale. The longer she stared, the more coma-like the effect seemed, and it made her angry, enough so she wanted to ring a bell or trip an alarm. “Wake up Detroit!” she wanted to shout, when the pilot mentioned it was under them. “Wake up Syracuse!” The pilot came back on to warn of turbulence, but the only thing shaking was her heart.
She turned around to take the house in, what she could see above the mist. Behind the porch the eaves rose at an angle so sharp it suggested a fierce-looking steeple. Under the edges drooped a trim of gingerbread so rotten it was impossible to understand why it hadn’t dropped off. The single window had only one shutter, hanging out at a lopsided angle from the glass. Now, as she watched, it seemed aware of her presence, because, with no wind stirring, it creaked sideways on its hinges and smacked the window with a bang.
Excellent, she decided—for the second time that night she nearly smiled. Show me more of this, use your best tricks, frighten me out of my numbness, though to find numbness is exactly why I’ve come. Generations had lived and died there, the house reached back into time, so why shouldn’t it be haunted, if only by rusty hinges, rotten joists, corroded pipes. Dan would have loved tackling these, he should have been the one to come. She could bring nothing to bear on the house except slow mindless work with her fingers, wrists, and arms, and yet maybe it was this that would make the house friendlier, coax it into her favor, calm all its fret.
She remained on the secret platform until she started shivering again, this time from cold. With it came exhaustion, and it was the deeper layer this time, the one that sleep could do nothing against. She went back inside to her mattress, pressed with her slipper until it slid away from the moonlight, and into the darkness let herself fall.
The difference in time zones worked in her favor—she slept much later than she did at home. The sun touched her face as the moon had, then moved across the floor to the nearest wall. When its light filled the room she got up, searched through her suitcase for a sweatshirt, tugged it down over her jeans. A midnight arrival was no way to start with the house. It needed to be approached in daylight, from a feeling of energy and strength. She went downstairs determined not to look at anything—she pressed her hands to her eyes like blinders—and then she was outside crossing the yard to the road, walking purposefully toward the sun.
It was a modern enough road, with two smooth lanes and absolutely no traffic. A hundred yards past the house a sign announced the village was three miles off, and beyond that on the crest of a little rise stood a smaller green sign that she fixed on as her goal. When I touch it I’ll turn around.
The fog lifted through the trees, and the energy of this made the leaves toss sideways and dance. From the wet grass on either side of the road came a cinnamon scent from flowers that were new to her, with spiky blossoms only partially unfurled. There was an iron smell,